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Background and Objectives The increasing number of people with dementia requires transparency and quality dementia education, training, and care. This scoping review aimed to determine the key elements of national or state-wide standards on dementia education and training that could underpin the development of international standards for dementia workforce training and education. Research Design and Methods The English-language peer-reviewed and gray literature were searched (2010–20). Key search domains were training, workforce, standards/frameworks, and dementia. Results Thirteen standards were identified from the United Kingdom (n = 5), the United States (n = 4), Australia (n = 3), and Ireland (n = 1). Most standards focused on training health care professionals with some including people in customer-centric settings, people living with dementia, and informal carers or the general community. Seventeen training topics were identified in 10 or more of the 13 standards. Cultural safety, rural issues, health care professional self-care, digital literacy, and health promotion topics were less commonly reported. The barriers to standards implementation were lack of organizational support, lack of access to relevant training, low staff literacy, lack of funding, high staff turnover, ineffective past program cycles, and inconsistent service delivery. Enablers included a strong implementation plan, funding, strength of partnerships, and building on previous work. Discussion and Implications The U.K. Dementia Skills and Core Training Standard, the Irish Department of Health Dementia Together, and the National Health Services Scotland Standard are the recommended strongest standards for underpinning the development of international standards. It is essential that training standards are tailored to the needs of the consumer, worker, and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives This study sought to qualitatively explore the lived experiences of 80 older people living in retirement villages across the United Kingdom and Australia. We focused on residents' narratives around the themes of independence/dependence. Research Design and Methods Qualitative semistructured interviews permitted in-depth exploration of how older people understood and experienced issues related to independence/dependence in the context of retirement living. Results Core themes identified strikingly different and often competing needs and narratives around independence/dependence. Of note was the fact that narratives and needs around independence/dependence frequently collided and conflicted, creating a sense of "us" and "them" in the retirement community. The primary source of such conflict was reflected by the fact that residents seeking a "prolonged midlife" often felt that frailer and more dependent residents were a burden on them and were not suited to an "independent living community." Discussion and Implications Our findings are discussed in relation to the challenges such competing narratives create for retirement villages as living environments for a group of people who are far from homogenous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Successful aging is a mainstay of the gerontological literature, but it is not without criticism, including the often-limited way that it is studied and measured as well as the exclusion of older adults' voices in its formulation and understanding. This study sought to address these issues through a qualitative investigation across multiple countries., Research Design and Methods: This was a mixed-methods, cross-sectional, exploratory study using an online survey. Nations that received the survey included Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, and the Unites States. Participants aged 65 and older were asked to describe what successful aging means to them in an open-ended survey item. Summative content analysis was utilized to examine the responses., Results: Successful aging was defined by 1,994 participants, and 6 themes along with 20 subthemes were found. In contrast to conception that successful aging is solely or predominantly related to the absence of disease and decline, the most prominent theme in this study was "active, independent, and engaged" as the hallmark of success., Discussion and Implications: Although health and health maintenance were present in other themes, these findings support a multidimensional definition of successful aging that promotes the perspectives of older people. Future research should seek to further investigate the ways in which person-in-environment factors influence definitions of successful aging, including culture, gender and gender identity, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic background., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America.)